“Patient Innovation (PI) launched the PI Awards with the objective of honoring all patients, caregivers and collaborators who have developed innovative solutions to cope with the challenges of their health condition, to help others they care about, or in some cases, people they don't even know.
Thank you for that. Warm congratulations to all those who participated.”

PATIENT INNOVATION CATEGORY

Hans Jørgen Wiberg

with Be My Eyes

Hans Jørgen Wiberg is a visually impaired Danish furniture craftsman. Through his own experience and work, Hans observed that many blind and low-vision individuals often needed occasional assistance to complete everyday tasks. The idea for Be My Eyes came to him when a blind friend shared that he used video calls to connect with family and friends for help with these tasks. This inspired Hans to envision a solution where video call technology could connect blind and low- vision individuals with a broader network of volunteers, providing assistance without having to rely solely on personal connections.

COLLABORATOR INNOVATION CATEGORY

Arun Agarwal

with Janitri Innovations

Arun was a Master's student in Biomedical Engineering and worked as a patent analyst. He then started working on his solution to avoiding preventable deaths of mothers-to-be and babies. Arun built Keyar, a non-invasive cardiotocography device that monitors a baby's heart rate in the mother’s womb and the uterine contractions of the mother-to-be. The biggest advantage of this solution is that it is cheaper, portable, non-invasive, and easy to use. Also, it allows the patient to be monitored remotely.

PATIENT - CAREGIVER INNOVATION CATEGORY

Beatriz Batista and Adília Oliveira

Until the age of 15, Beatriz lived a normal life, free from illness or major setbacks. Then, her world was turned upside down. In a matter of months, she lost 90% of her vision, her hearing, and eventually, the ability to control her limbs. Despite these overwhelming challenges, Beatriz possesses an extraordinary intellect. With a remarkable memory and a unique ability to visualize information through touch, she has excelled in her studies, having graduated with a bachelor's degree in Economics from Nova SBE. Her mother and caregiver, Adília Oliveira, have been instrumental in her education, by translating information directly by writing it out onto her hands and face.

PATIENT INNOVATION CATEGORY

Konrad Zielinski

with Uhura Bionics

A couple years ago Konrad lost his larynx due to cancer and was unable to find a convenient solution to regain his natural voice back. So, he started the Uhura Bionics team, to help him design the relevant technology to restore the natural communication of laryngectomees with the use of smart interfaces. Their aesthetic artificial larynx and AI-capable voice amplifier are able to restore the quality and freedom of conversation, turning the robotic sound of the current artificial larynxes into a natural-sounding voice.

COLLABORATOR INNOVATION CATEGORY

Akshita Sachdeva and Bonny Dave

with Trestle Labs, Kibo

By combining their knowledge and interest to keep working with communities of visually impaired people, helping them to pursue their education Akshita Sachdeva and Bonny Dave co-founded Trestle Labs. Their first project was developing ‘Kibo’, a device to help the visually impaired access written content. What it does is make anything that is printed accessible to audio by digitalizing it, allowing visually impaired people to listen to any book.

PATIENT INNOVATION CATEGORY

Adriana Mallozzi

with Puffin Innovation

Adriana Mallozzi was born with cerebral palsy and was first introduced to a power wheelchair, at age 9. Puffin Innovations team created a Bluetooth-connected device fit for Android phones, that people with disabilities can control with their mouth, allowing them greater access to computers and mobile phones. Puffin empowers people with disabilities to connect wirelessly to mobile devices, computers & anything smart.

CAREGIVER INNOVATION CATEGORY

Jaume Puig and Constanza Lucero

with Biel Glasses

Constanza, is a medical doctor, and Jaume, is an Electronics Engineer, and they are the parents of Biel, a child, born with low vision. Biel's parents combined their knowledge in different areas and started Biel Glasses. The glasses capture the user's visual field, and through a processor, an algorithm analyzes the information to return signals to the display module. Then the display module adapts the image to the residual vision of the patient, indicating obstacles and other elements through various graphic signals that the user is able to perceive.

CAREGIVER INNOVATION CATEGORY

Taylor Moreland

with The Frog

Taylor (USA) has a son, Brody, who has spina bifida. He underwent several surgeries but his mobility didn’t improve. His family wasn’t able to find a device on the market to help the child. Due to this, they decided to build The Frog. It consists of a gadget on wheels that allows a child who is at least 6-months-old to use their arms to move. The Frog supports the baby’s weight with the help of large wheels placed near his hips.

COLLABORATOR INNOVATION CATEGORY

Wang Nana and Huang Shuang

with Armband Showing

Wang Nana and Huang Shuang (China) were students when they were working on gesture recognition based on images. They had one deaf friend who made them realize that it would be more effective to rely on EMG (electrodiagnostic medicine technique for evaluating and recording the electrical activity produced by skeletal muscles) rather than images. That led the team to develop Showing, an armband which is worn around the arm which is composed of eight EMG sensors and gyroscope.

COLLABORATOR INNOVATION CATEGORY

Bill Deimling, Bill Wood and Bill Sand

with May We Help

May We Help (USA) is a nonprofit organisation that develops gadgets to increase the autonomy level of disabled people. It all started when Bill Wood met a young lady who had cerebral palsy who asked Bill if he could come up with a better way to read her books. At the same time, Bill Deimling was creating adapting assistive devices for a family member who also struggled with physical disabilities. Then the two Bills met and decided to help each other. They were also joined with Bill Sand. Together they founded May We Help.

PATIENT SERIAL INNOVATION CATEGORY

Bodo Hoenen

with 3D printed robotic arm brace

Bodo Hoenen (USA) won the Patient Innovation award in the Caregiver Innovator Category. Bodo developed a robotic orthosis for his daughter’s arm, Lorelei, who suffers from acute flaccid myelitis, a neurologic disease that damaged her arm. Lorelei used the robotic orthosis to make physiotherapy so that she could regain mobility, and after a short period, she was able to grab light objects.

CAREGIVER INNOVATION CATEGORY

Lise Pape

with Path Finder

Lise Pape (Denmark) won the Patient Innovation Award in the Caregiver Category. Lise developed Path Finder inspired by her father who struggles with Parkinson’s disease. This disease is related to episodes of freezing of gait, which leads to the helpless fall of patients with this condition. Lise was afraid that her father would fall when his wife was not around, so she created a device that projects a light on the floor, helping understand what would be the next step.

CAREGIVER INNOVATION CATEGORY

Gérard Niyondiko

with Faso Soap

Gérard Niyondiko (Burkina Faso) won the Patient Innovator Award in the category Innovator from Developing Country with Faso Soap. Gérard saw six of his twelve siblings die of malaria, and he almost died because of this disease. Driven by the extreme poverty of his community and with the purpose of protecting them from the malaria mosquito, he created a soap made of ingredients extracted from local plants. The soap makes the mosquitos stay away for 6 hours, and is an affordable solution for all families in developing countries.